Claire O’Neil grew up hearing stories from her grandmother’s Irish homeland. Her grandmother seemed to be personally acquainted with exotic fairies, mischievous pixies, even powerfully seductive shape-shifters. On the eve of the older woman’s funeral, Claire is visited again by strangely erotic dreams which began on her sixteenth birthday, dreams which leave her breathless and aroused by the shadowy presence of a mysterious stranger. At the funeral itself, she is approached by a foreigner who carries a letter from her grandmother. Following the instructions in the letter, Claire is whisked away to Ireland to discover the legacy left behind by her grandmother.

Once in the Emerald Isle Claire is stunned to learn that her grandmother’s stories were real: the Dubh Sidhe and the Four Fey Courts of Dublin do exist. More shockingly, an ancient prophecy has tied their fate to hers. At a chance encounter Claire comes face-to-face with the stranger from her dreams, and breathless doesn’t begin to describe the effect he has on her! As she finds herself caught between rivals for leadership of the shape-shifters, Claire is kidnapped and held in seclusion by the mysterious stranger’s brother as part of their battle for leadership of the their family. Only Claire can help the mysterious stranger to save himself and his clan from losing their power forever. If she chooses to…and if she can accept that passion can take many forms.

At the time I wrote The
Wolf Prince, I was living in Dublin as the plus-one for a corporate
rotation. My partner had to go to the
office every day…I went, well, wherever I wanted.

I soon discovered that every part of Dublin has its own
unique character. And I don’t mean like
any town has its own personality. I mean
different blocks on the same street are like entirely separate worlds. And the parks…oh, the parks! Three in particular drew me again and again.

St. Stephen’s Green is neutral ground where everybody can
gather and it has a little bit of everything.
Iveagh Gardens is a secret corner with fallen down statues and old
fountains that brood over the few picnickers who find their way there. Marlay Park is a wild place where you just
KNOW the Fae linger in the moonlight hoping that a human child wanders by. Each has its own soul.

And yet…

There is something
that connects them all. I wandered
through them, my pen and notebook in hand, feeling that somehow Iveagh knew that I had just been in St.
Stephen’s…and when visiting Marlay Park it was like the wildlife had heard from
their relatives closer to town that it was ok to let me pass. Knowledge seemed
to pass like a breeze through the tree branches, through the very air of what
they call the Fair City.

I became more and more convinced of that connection. And, over my various visits I started to sense
some population, some group of inhabitants just out of reach of our human
perception active behind the scenes. At one point, I saw a sign for Dublin’s “Four
Courts” and I had a revelation. Ireland
used to be four separate kingdoms. And
now, what remains just out of sight out is fairy legacy of four separate courts,
each distinct, but each connect in this hidden, shadow Dublin. Each has its politics, its squabbles and,
like the town, its own distinct character.
As the wildest of the urban parks, it felt right that the Marlay court of
“Sidhe” (pronounced “she”) would be the wildest, the most animal…the
shapeshifters.

Then all I had to do was listen…and this story and others
came to me…so if you happened to be passing through St. Stephen’s Green some
time back and saw a woman with ice-blond hair being watched over by a plump,
elegant swan while chatting with a stranger scribbling frantically to capture
everything…that stranger was me…and as for what I was working so hard to
capture, well, that’s the story you’ll find in The Wolf Prince.The city
told me many tales during my stay, but this was the first. I hope you enjoy it!

p.s. I love hearing from readers! Please feel free to drop me a note at jayeraymee@gmail.com and I look forward
to hearing from you!

~~~oOo~~~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jaye has been writing since at least the age of eight, and still cherishes that very first manuscript about a knight kissing a maiden. While the subject matter has evolved from those days, the human condition in all its varied forms and all its joyful expressions of intimacy remains central to Jaye's writing. Found anywhere from a small town on California's San Francisco Peninsula to the wild corners of Ireland, Jaye can often be spotted quietly scribbling in a series of notebooks, where stories are born. You may have run into Jaye just this morning at your local cafe and never realized it.

You get a peek at Jaye's Notebook at or follow the Twitter feed @JayErotica. Reader feedback is always encouraged…and every fantasy is interesting…

Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use a RoanePublishing.com Gift Code. No purchase necessary, but you must be 18 or older to enter. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter, and announced on the widget. Winner well be notified by emailed and have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. The number of entries received determines the odds of winning. This giveaway was organized by Roane Publishing's marketing department.

Claire O’Neil grew up hearing stories from her grandmother’s Irish homeland. Her grandmother seemed to be personally acquainted with exotic fairies, mischievous pixies, even powerfully seductive shape-shifters. On the eve of the older woman’s funeral, Claire is visited again by strangely erotic dreams which began on her sixteenth birthday, dreams which leave her breathless and aroused by the shadowy presence of a mysterious stranger. At the funeral itself, she is approached by a foreigner who carries a letter from her grandmother. Following the instructions in the letter, Claire is whisked away to Ireland to discover the legacy left behind by her grandmother.

Once in the Emerald Isle Claire is stunned to learn that her grandmother’s stories were real: the Dubh Sidhe and the Four Fey Courts of Dublin do exist. More shockingly, an ancient prophecy has tied their fate to hers. At a chance encounter Claire comes face-to-face with the stranger from her dreams, and breathless doesn’t begin to describe the effect he has on her! As she finds herself caught between rivals for leadership of the shape-shifters, Claire is kidnapped and held in seclusion by the mysterious stranger’s brother as part of their battle for leadership of the their family. Only Claire can help the mysterious stranger to save himself and his clan from losing their power forever. If she chooses to…and if she can accept that passion can take many forms.

At the time I wrote The
Wolf Prince, I was living in Dublin as the plus-one for a corporate
rotation. My partner had to go to the
office every day…I went, well, wherever I wanted.

I soon discovered that every part of Dublin has its own
unique character. And I don’t mean like
any town has its own personality. I mean
different blocks on the same street are like entirely separate worlds. And the parks…oh, the parks! Three in particular drew me again and again.

St. Stephen’s Green is neutral ground where everybody can
gather and it has a little bit of everything.
Iveagh Gardens is a secret corner with fallen down statues and old
fountains that brood over the few picnickers who find their way there. Marlay Park is a wild place where you just
KNOW the Fae linger in the moonlight hoping that a human child wanders by. Each has its own soul.

And yet…

There is something
that connects them all. I wandered
through them, my pen and notebook in hand, feeling that somehow Iveagh knew that I had just been in St.
Stephen’s…and when visiting Marlay Park it was like the wildlife had heard from
their relatives closer to town that it was ok to let me pass. Knowledge seemed
to pass like a breeze through the tree branches, through the very air of what
they call the Fair City.

I became more and more convinced of that connection. And, over my various visits I started to sense
some population, some group of inhabitants just out of reach of our human
perception active behind the scenes. At one point, I saw a sign for Dublin’s “Four
Courts” and I had a revelation. Ireland
used to be four separate kingdoms. And
now, what remains just out of sight out is fairy legacy of four separate courts,
each distinct, but each connect in this hidden, shadow Dublin. Each has its politics, its squabbles and,
like the town, its own distinct character.
As the wildest of the urban parks, it felt right that the Marlay court of
“Sidhe” (pronounced “she”) would be the wildest, the most animal…the
shapeshifters.

Then all I had to do was listen…and this story and others
came to me…so if you happened to be passing through St. Stephen’s Green some
time back and saw a woman with ice-blond hair being watched over by a plump,
elegant swan while chatting with a stranger scribbling frantically to capture
everything…that stranger was me…and as for what I was working so hard to
capture, well, that’s the story you’ll find in The Wolf Prince. The city
told me many tales during my stay, but this was the first. I hope you enjoy it!

p.s. I love hearing from readers! Please feel free to drop me a note at jayeraymee@gmail.com and I look forward
to hearing from you!

~~~oOo~~~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jaye has been writing since at least the age of eight, and still cherishes that very first manuscript about a knight kissing a maiden. While the subject matter has evolved from those days, the human condition in all its varied forms and all its joyful expressions of intimacy remains central to Jaye's writing. Found anywhere from a small town on California's San Francisco Peninsula to the wild corners of Ireland, Jaye can often be spotted quietly scribbling in a series of notebooks, where stories are born. You may have run into Jaye just this morning at your local cafe and never realized it.

You get a peek at Jaye's Notebook at or follow the Twitter feed @JayErotica. Reader feedback is always encouraged…and every fantasy is interesting…

Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use a RoanePublishing.com Gift Code. No purchase necessary, but you must be 18 or older to enter. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter, and announced on the widget. Winner well be notified by emailed and have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. The number of entries received determines the odds of winning. This giveaway was organized by Roane Publishing's marketing department.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

I'm thrilled to have Bill Chastain, author of RETROUVAILLES here with me today with his journey to publication!

This book is PHENOMENAL. Seriously. LOVED this book with all caps, obviously.

Now Available at all major online retailers!

Oh, & be sure to check out the giveaway, too...

I'm one of the lucky ones. I identified my
passion early and I've made a living pursuing that passion for most of my adult
life.

When I entered Georgia Tech in the fall of
1975, I figured I’d graduate, make some money, and that would take care of
everything where my future happiness was concerned. Boy did I get that one wrong.
Working at a job I didn’t like wasn’t for me.

I’d been a reader my whole life, and I
loved sports. That prompted me to try
and combine the two by becoming a sports writer, even though I had not studied
journalism or creative writing. Classmates
of mine, who graduated with Industrial Management degrees, went on to careers in
accounting, business, finance, and quality control—not writing.

I freelanced initially, parlaying articles
I’d written for smaller publications into assignments for national
publications. That led to a full-time job as a sports writer with The Tampa Tribune.

My job with the Tribune proved to be everything I thought it would be. I mean, going to work every day and creating
something is a fulfilling experience. The
position also afforded me the opportunity to travel the country and see things
I never would have otherwise seen. Many
of those places have served well as settings for the novels I’ve written. While sports writing beat any nine-to-five
job, I always liked reading and writing fiction best.

Favorite authors include Pat Conroy, Larry
McMurtry, Tom Wolfe, and Rebecca Wells. All of them created characters,
settings, scenes, and plots that jumped off the page and resonated with me. They inspired me. Writing has never come easy. But the pursuit of writing well invigorates
me.

Given my background in sports, most of the
books I’ve written, fiction or non-fiction, have been sports related. Retrouvailles delivered a new challenge.
Sports writers aren't supposed to write love stories, right?

I embraced the idea.

Alex Overstreet and India Blue
Kirkland are the main characters. Alex
is studious, intelligent, responsible, and mature beyond his years. India Blue
is the girl everybody falls in love with in high school. She's pretty, popular,
funny, and has a mischievous side. Opposites
often attract. These opposites fall in
love.

The
process of creating Alex and India allowed me to become intimate with their
lives, plotting their fortunes, emotional highs, and lows, and their
relationship together. More times than
not, Alex and India told me the direction in which the story needed to go. I can’t tell you how often I read something I
wrote and said to myself, “Alex wouldn’t do that” or “That’s just not India.”

I’ve resided in Alex’s and India’s heads
for so long that they’ll forever be in mine.
I’m pleased with what I’ve written.

Mature beyond his years, he understands the value of education and where having one can take him. Adverse circumstances are no match for the "anything is possible" residing in his soul, a place where self-pity need not enter. His future is mapped in his mind. Staying the course will bring a worthwhile end game.

Enter India Blue Kirkland.

The most popular girl in school is the unknown Alex failed to factor into his carefully calculated life plans. She is everything he is not—outgoing and popular. A chance encounter with her sets into place a life-long love affair.

Together they find a passion and embrace the best of their different worlds while exploring the wonder of love. Both are more than ready for a future together. But Alex’s family situation looms in the background, and eventually catches up to him, forcing him to make sacrifices that change the course of his relationship with India. Though driven apart, their love never wavers.

Years later, Alex is successful on a large scale professionally, yet emptiness clings to him like free-floating lint to a dark suit. India should have been a part of it all. He's never moved on from her. She is the love of his life. Meanwhile, India is trapped in a marriage and longs for what she had with Alex. One glance of Alex at her father’s funeral sparks a romance that never died.

Retrouvailles validates the compelling power of first love and how the snapshots of moments together matter most. Those snapshots representing sweet moments in time can be more compelling than a lifetime spent together.

Alex sipped a Presidente while sitting on the deck outside “The Parched Pelican.”

Indian Rocks Beach had fancier places than the open-air tavern facing the Gulf of Mexico. Alex just preferred the dive with the dowdy name. The hand-painted sign showing a cartoon pelican with muscles and tattoos cracked him up—Florida tacky at its finest. Plus, no steel drum bands, no Tiki torches and, best of all, few patrons at that time of day. You could drink a cold beer and just be. Alex preferred to blend in with the scenery, be invisible, thus, serenity.

A salty breeze grazed his face and the rhythm of the gentle surf performed the duty of a fairy-tale sandman, making heavy his eyelids. Giving in to such an urge would be his normal inclination. Take a few steps down to the beach, stretch out in the sand underneath the azure sky, and suddenly he’d be blowing Z’s like Dagwood Bumstead.

Not today.

Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip while his thumb picked off the label from the bottle of Dominican beer. He stared at the naked green bottle, hoping a state of nothingness would come to him. If he studied the inanimate object long enough he might forget the troublesome reality weighing heavy on his mind.

Maybe they’d waltz around the subject of her pending doom, tiptoeing like one of those Russian gymnasts on the balance beam, tension…tension…tension, but cool. Dying was an extremely personal matter and something she might not want to share with him. If she did, he couldn’t show pity and pity was hard to disguise. The slightest sign of it would piss her off. Taking a direct approach suited India.

Alex undid the top buttons of the light cotton shirt he wore loose at the waist and ordered another Presidente. Several months had passed since he awoke wearing socks and a monster hangover, unable to remember where he’d parked the car. The moment frightened him into an abstinence pledge.

Feeling too good for too long had brought him to the conclusion that his initial solution felt too much like Alcoholics Anonymous. He rationalized the step lacking from the guiding twelve steps was moderation; and all that guilt if you fell off the wagon for a couple of drinks. Besides, he enjoyed alcohol too much to quit. Common sense told him that all the alcohol in the world would not change his life. Thus, hoping to avoid self-destruction, he imposed a three-beer limit, installed like a father does a governor to his son’s go-cart to prevent him from driving too fast.

Alex’s eyes closed and he rocked back in his chair, evoking a sad moan from the deck constructed of rough-hewn two-by-fours. Balancing his body with one leg resting on an adjacent chair, he heard steps approach. A cold palm touched his face, then two moist lips met his for a lingering moment.

~~~oOo~~~ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bill Chastain is a sports journalist who is the author of two previous novels, PEACHTREE CORVETTE CLUB and THE STREAK. He also has penned non-fiction sports titles including THE STEVE SPURRIER STORY: FROM HEISMAN TO HEAD BALL COACH; PAYNE AT PINEHURST: THE GREATEST U.S. OPEN EVER; HACK’S 191: HACK WILSON AND HIS INCREDIBLE 1930 SEASON; SEPTEMBER NIGHTS: HUNTING THE BEASTS OF THE AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST; and JACKRABBIT: THE STORY OF CLINT CASTLEBERRY AND THE IMPROBABLE 1942 GEORGIA TECH FOOTBALL TEAM.

Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use a RoanePublishing.com Gift Code. No purchase necessary, but you must be 18 or older to enter. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter, and announced on the widget. Winner well be notified by emailed and have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. The number of entries received determines the odds of winning. This giveaway was organized by Roane Publishing's marketing department.

Dolan wants nothing more than to escape his village for the big city where his small stature and unpleasant features won’t make him the recipient of constant ridicule by the lord of the manor and his heir, Gilroy. The mist that dances to the sweet notes of Dolan's flute is his only camaraderie and the only beauty in his life—except for Keavy.

When the kind milkmaid is faced with unwanted attentions, Dolan must defend her honor with a choice that will ultimately change his life.

The Dragon, The Witch, and the Swordswoman

By Claire Davon

As the person responsible for calling the bronze dragon that destroyed her village, Losha is tasked with killing it. Failure to do so means she will be outcast from everything she has ever known. Yet one she is on the road, two local women in tow, she finds that she is strangely reluctant to harm the beast that lurks in her mind.

After an encounter with an oddly familiar old woman and a knight in a small hamlet Losha is more confused than ever. On one hand, failure to slay the dragon means she cannot return to the promise of marriage from a local boy yet the more she learns about the dragon the less she wants to harm it. It, like the bronze sword that is her only defense, speaks to her in a way nothing else has.

The stage is set for a final showdown between knight and beast when the knight’s true quest is revealed and Losha must choose between all she has ever known, or the companionship of an old woman…and a dragon.

Forging Mettle

By Michael Siciliano

Xander, a teenaged street thief in the grimy slums of Low Town, discovers he has an innate magical talent on the same night his father is killed. Intent on getting revenge, he attempts a risky robbery which goes bad. Rather than face the hangman’s noose, Xander agrees to accompany a group of soldiers intent on finding a powerful magical artifact. But the Beggar’s Hand isn’t what the King’s sorcerer thinks. Deep in the mountains, Xander must make life and death decisions, not just for himself, but the Kingdom he calls home.

Valcone is the reclusive prince of Auric. Confined to his room—for the safety of his subjects—he craves control over his persuasive powers.

The prince and the farmgirl’s powerful personalities will collide with epic force when a war erupts between Auric and a neighboring kingdom. With Auric’s fate on the line, Valcone tests the limits of his ability. He amplifies his steady push into a forceful shove against Meadow’s gentle Nature. The Earth-shaper finds herself between a rock and a hard place, literally, where the only choice to save her family may lie in surrendering to the destructive force of her ground-breaking ability.

Alice and the Egg

By Rebecca Hart

Alice would do anything for her father, the only parent she’s ever known since her mother’s death in childbirth. When he falls ill, Alice doesn’t hesitate when the opportunity to barter her life for his is presented by Jayden, the prince and only heir to the Dragorean throne.

It doesn’t take long for Alice to realize the palace has secrets. Ones that relate to her own past more than she could ever have imagined. If she can find a way to play the game of secrets well enough, not only could she save her father, she just manage to save herself as well.

~~~oOo~~~

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